


raised for the slaughter

by astoryaboutwar



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Badass BBs, Badass Stiles though, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotionally Hurt Derek, Emotionally Hurt Stiles Stilinski, Everyone is super angsty, M/M, POV Outsider on Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5272604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astoryaboutwar/pseuds/astoryaboutwar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Just breathe,” Stiles says. “One breath at a time.” He gets called away by one of the chaperones.</p><p><i>Just breathe</i>, you repeat.</p><p>It’s a pity that you went into an Arena with twenty-three others, and you’re the only one still doing that.</p><p>This is the legacy of the Hunger Games, you think. The dead haunt the living, and the living are haunted by themselves.</p><p>(A Hunger Games TW AU in three parts; Sterek-centric, told from the perspective of an outsider.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	raised for the slaughter

**Author's Note:**

> I _know_ I said I was pretty much done with this fandom, but I just watched Mockingjay Part 2, and I was a sucker for all the whomp in the books; this seemed too perfect to pass up for Derek/Stiles. Plus, you know, I wanted to try something new, and second-person POV has always really interested me.
> 
> I'm going to ask that all **constructive criticism please be _withheld_**. I've had very negative experiences with it in the past, and have no wish to be on the receiving end of that again. If you don't like it, just stop reading. 
> 
> That being said, comments are much appreciated and loved!

You are the first victor from your District in twenty-four years. 

There are no living victors before you; you had no mentor from your District. You have heard of Haymitch Abernathy, of course, but only in hushed whispers and rumours. _Family massacred by the Capitol,_ you hear in the market. _Poor bugger drank himself to death._

They assigned you a mentor from District 4 - Stillinski, _but it’s okay, you can call me Stiles_. You hadn’t quite known what to make of him then, hair short-shorn and baby faced, rambling words and all. You’d been too focused on winning and take-no-prisoners and _surviving._  

What you know of District 4 is limited to pre-Game footage, interviews, and what the Game commentators tell you. Finnick Odair has made the District famous - his eponymous trident, blond beauty and triumphant, water-earned victory is a cornerstone of the Game re-runs played in the weeks leading up to every new Hunger Games. So you know that District 4 is the fishing District, all of them good swimmers, fairly wealthy, and famed for their looks, but beyond that, what else you know is gleaned from snippets of conversations.

District 4 has no shortage of victors, this much you know. You cannot recall all of their names, but Annie Cresta, Derek Hale, and Stiles are the more recent ones that you can remember. There are others, of course - District 4 is one of the career Districts - and you’ve heard Stiles mention _Mags_ as another in passing.

You’ve heard things about Derek Hale, most of it from Stiles, some of it from Portia and Cinna and Effie back in the weeks leading up to your Games.

“He’s really a good person,” you recall Stiles reassuring you during one of his rambles, even as you remember being unsure of the reason he was telling you this. “He’s just - well, I guess we all are, but he’s just more damaged than most, and can you blame the guy? He’s really growly and prickly most of the time, but deep down, I swear he’s actually nice. Really, really, _really_ deep down. Wouldn’t have guessed from his Games, though. Did you know he clawed a guy apart with his bare hands? That must have been - ”  

He’d seen your paling face then. “Oh - hey, hey, don’t worry, he won’t do that to you, I promise. And - shit, I mean - I highly doubt anyone’s going to claw you apart? I think? I’m really not helping, am I. I’ll - uh - I’ll go get Effie, I think she’s around here somewhere, you know how she always - ”

His voice had faded as he wandered out of the living room to track Effie down, and you remember sitting on the bed in the room they’d loaned (not given, never given, _everything has a price)_ you, mind reeling with the possibility that you could be _clawed apart with bare hands_ in the Arena.  

That was a long time ago, though. A whole year. You’ve finished your victory tour, and the train taking you to the Capitol for the pre-Games fanfare is drawing into the station.

It’s the third Quarter Quell this year, after all. It’s your first year as a mentor.

Hooray, you’re sure it’ll be such fun.

___________

  

This is what the public thinks the Games gave you: a pile of gold in outright winnings; a limitless supply of the best food District 12 has to offer; a house in the Victor’s Village; a cushy, glamourous tour of the Districts; endless adulation from fans; a golden ticket to the Games annually; a plentiful life for as long as you live.

This is what you have received: cold, gripping, terrifying nightmares, vivid memories of the flesh of your chest dangling in the wind, mangled in your final fight; a drafty, empty house; hostile glares from the Districts whose tributes (whose _children)_ you have all murdered in cold blood; a life of guilt mentoring those you know stand little chance of winning (of _living)._

This is the legacy of the Hunger Games, you think. The dead haunt the living, and the living are haunted by themselves.

It is the first thing you ask Stiles when you see him in the Victors’ Quarters after you disembark and are hustled away from the station by a harried Effie.

“How do you do it?” Your question lacks elaboration, but there are no words to express what you mean to say. 

There are no words to express surviving the Hunger Games.

You know Stiles understands you. His eyes grow clouded, shuttered and distant - jarring. Stiles is always laughing, always smiling like the blood of twenty-three other tributes do not stain his hands.

“Just breathe,” he says. “One breath at a time.”

He gets called away by one of the chaperones.

_Just breathe,_ you repeat.

It’s a pity that you went into an Arena with twenty-three others, and you’re the only one still doing that.

Still: it’s as good a piece of advice as any.

__________

 

Quarter Quells are huge events, extravagant and excessive and brutal and ugly.

President Snow’s special Quarter Quell announcement is no surprise - horrifying and vicious as the Capitol is wont to be, but no surprise there. 

Only brother-sister sibling pairs will be reaped this year. 

You pass a Capitol couple, hair flamboyantly neon blue and orange, strolling arm-in-arm. “Imagine,” the man says, “This Hunger Games is going to be so _amazing.”_

“I _know,_ ” the woman shrills back. “The _drama!”_

You quicken your steps, sickened by their careless, fatuous cruelty.

“Julius, _look,_ ” you hear the woman hiss as you draw further away from them. “That was _Caellum Kinney!”_

“The victor of the 74th? Are you _serious?”_ He replies, and out of the corner of your eye, you see him flail and crane to catch a glimpse of you.

You turn the corner, losing them in the crowd.

 

__________

 

You wander around the Victors’ Quarters in the hours that follow, nothing scheduled for the day. The schedule that Effie has set up to be projected onto your room wall tells you that you have an interview with Caesar Flickerman tomorrow morning and an appearance on Odysseus Golding’s fashion show in the afternoon.

The Quarters are deserted, most of the other victors busy with their own public obligations and appearances, ushered around by their chaperones. It’s a surprise, then, to walk into the common room of the Quarters to find Stiles flicking through channels on the wall-screen, slumped on one of the plush sofas. 

He’s draped over another man you can only see in profile, the dim lighting of the darkened room doing nothing to help you identify him. You can make out a harsh jawline, the shadow of stubble, and an aquiline nose, and -

“Caellum!” Stiles calls. “Why don’t you come in and join us?”

It takes a long moment before you can force yourself into motion, the hunted days of your Hunger Games not too far behind you. You hadn’t even known - hadn’t thought it possible - that Stiles could have seen you, dark as the room is and obscured as you still are in the shadows by the doorway.

You heave a breath and look up from where you have half-folded into yourself in reflexive panic. Derek Hale stares back at you, something calculating and considering in his gaze, eyes a little flinty and not entirely friendly.

Stiles smacks him lightly on the thigh. “Be nice,” you hear him warn, just as you round the sofa.

“Come on,” Stiles invites with a beam. “Grab a seat, we’re just lazing around for the day, no nefarious public appearances, I promise." 

You settle onto an adjacent sofa, propping your feet up onto the coffee table like Stiles has done.

“So,” you begin, desperate for conversation, because what do you say to someone who has seen you - has _helped_ you - murder twenty-three children on the national screen? “Are you the District 4 mentor this year?”

“God, no,” Stiles chuckles. “I had enough with you last year, I wasn’t going to go through it again this time.”

His good-natured ribbing sets you at ease, and the towering monoliths that make up Capitol City seem a little less intimidating, a little less unfriendly. 

“No,” he continues, “Derek’s mentoring this year.” A look you can’t exactly place flashes in his eyes, one that is at odds with his grin and perpetual affability.

Derek rolls his eyes, shrugging off the elbowing Stiles is giving him. “Yeah, I drew the short straw.”

Pacified by Derek’s stilted attempt at making conversation, Stiles picks up where he awkwardly left off to elaborate. 

“No one wants to do Quarter Quells,” he tells you. “Nasty stuff. Mags had to mentor for the second one, and boy, there was double the usual number that year, you can imagine the carnage. Derek, you remember what Mags told us about Brynne? With the poisonous grass and the wood? Man, that was _sick._ ” He shudders visibly.

“You make sure District 4 brings home a new victor,” he tells Derek jokingly.

Derek’s quicksilver temper rears its head at Stiles’s gallows humour. “Sure,” he rebukes, “the next Haymitch. Won’t _that_ be fun.”

He shoves Stiles off his lap, storming off in the direction of the pool.

You clear you throat awkwardly, grasping at straws in an attempt to dispel the tension in the air. “I take it he’s not a fan of mentoring?”

“He isn’t,” Stiles responds, grateful to have something to fill the burgeoning silence. “He’s never been.”

“Oh?” you ask, trying to keep the conversation going. You’ve never been the best at social situations, and winning the Hunger Games hasn’t changed that.

“He was my mentor, you know?” Stiles picks up an apple from the fruit bowl on the table, tossing it idly as he talks. “The 72nd Hunger Games, a couple of years before you.”

You remember a fair bit about that Games. It’d been hailed by the Capitol as the most breathtaking Arena yet; they’d held the Games in a mountainous region, the Arena itself spilling off the mountain into floating structures thousands of miles above ground. The Cornucopia had been on a floating platform _above_ the peak, accessible only by twelve rope ladders left swaying in the draft. 

It’d been a bloodbath. With little room to manoeuvre and carrion bird muttations feasting on the stragglers, the 72nd Hunger Games went down as the quickest Hunger Games in recorded history, brutal and savage. 

The Careers had banded together on the first day, and they’d pinned the bodies of their kills to the side of their requisitioned platform with spears.

“You must have been, what, fourteen? Fifteen?”

The glint of a hunting knife is bright in the dimness of the common room, but the apple in his hand is cored and the knife tucked away before you can so much as decide how to react. (It is too close to the end of your Hunger Games, and you are not sure how to be human again.) 

“Sixteen,” he tells you. “The Reaping was on my birthday. Crazy, right?”

You realise, with a start, that you are older than him. It never seemed that way, had never even occurred to you that it _could_ be that way. Stiles was your _mentor_ , he’d given you advice on what to do and where to head first in the Arena, he’d _taught you the best way to kill someone._

“Plead mercy first,” he’d told you. “Especially if you’re up against a Career. They’ve been trained to do this since birth, practically - they can’t resist gloating if you appear to live up to the frailty of your District’s reputation.” 

He’d had the same knife he used to core his apple in hand that night, flicking and flipping it in the still air, never once looking at it, always catching it by the handle.

“Wait till they get close,” he’d instructed. “In situations like that, Careers will always go for a close kill. More publicity, more sponsors that way. Kill them with their arrogance.” 

He’d said it with a shrug, like the words carried no meaning, no other significance. “Districts 1 and 2 tend to favour melee weapons - swords, daggers, blades. Do _not_ go for one of those weapons, you will _not_ win if you go against them armed as they are. District 4 and 11 are the ones you have to watch out for, they like ranged weapons. 4’s a bit of a toss up; they might join the Career pack. 11’s wily. Always look up, they’re agile and _fast_ and they can climb anything worth climbing, so they’ll have a tactical advantage.”

You’d nodded along then, too caught up trying to absorb all the information you could to help you survive in the Arena. Now, though - you find yourself wondering at the complexity and utter deadliness that make up Stiles Stilinski.

You find yourself haunted by the twenty-three others you slaughtered in the Arena, in woods much like the ones that surround your childhood home. The smell of fresh wet leaves that greeted you after you’d stepped off the train upon your arrival back had nearly made you throw up.

“Twenty-three’s just a number,” Stiles had told you, the night before your Hunger Games.

_It’s just a number,_ you silently echo now, and the flash of a small hunting knife being twirled sends chills skittering down your spine.

__________

 

Effie ushers you in the prep room early next morning to get you styled and ready for your slew of public appearances. The prep area of the Victors’ Quarters is surprisingly busy for the time of day - but then, you reason, there is no rest for the wicked.

Public obligations and other such social commitments are the mainstay of any victor’s life. Interviews, talkshows, guest appearances; there will always be someone somewhere who wants to ask you to recount your _triumphant, glorious win at the Hunger Games_.

The prep room with a distinct 12 carved into the door - “mahogany, Caellum, it’s _mahogany!”_ \- has not seen any use in recent years. Not since Haymitch ten years ago,Flavius confides.

“And even then,” Flavius gossips, “he wasn’t exactly the most accommodating, you know. Marcus from the team before us told me he _never_ showed for any of the prep sessions.” He shudders delicately. “Think of how he must have _looked._ Horrid, horrid. We won’t let that happen to you."  

Flavius is distracted by the arrival of Octavia and Venia, and they launch into a heated discussion of the merits of colour-changing body paint and skin gel that turns your body translucent.  

The door hisses open on its well-oiled rollers, and you are more ecstatic than you care to admit about the new arrival.

“Cinna,” you breathe, and get up from the prep chair to envelope him in a warm hug.

“Caellum,” he greets, returning the embrace. “It’s wonderful to see you.” The _alive_ goes unsaid.

“You’re the first sane person I’ve seen around these parts,” you joke, settling back into the prep chair even as you grimace at the array of body lotions, waxes, tweezers and clippers that Flavius, Venia, and Octavia have artfully arranged on the worktables.

“Not even Stiles?” Cinna asks. “Word on the grapevine is that the two of you had a chat in the common room yesterday.” 

You smile in response, chuckling a little.

“ _Especially_ not Stiles.”

 __________ 

 

Your interview with Caesar Flickerman goes exactly as expected. You’re the newest, freshest slice of the Hunger Games pie, so everyone is clamouring for a piece of you. The barrage of questions are nothing you did not predict, questions like _come, tell us about your path to victory_ and _what was it like having to kill your District-mate?_

The interview is drawing to a close when Flickerman switches tack. 

“Now, Caellum,” he says, “surely you agree that your win was not yours alone. Would you say that your mentor played a huge part?”

Thrown off track, you fumble for a reply. “You mean Stiles? He taught - Yeah, I mean, he was definitely a big help. He gave me the sort of advice you’d never have figured out on your own unless you’ve gone through a Games yourself, you know?”

Flickerman sends you an encouraging smile. “Yes, that’s right - Stiles Stilinski was your mentor! Ladies and gentlemen, that’s the victor of the 72nd Hunger Games - an exciting year, I’m sure we all remember it. Lovely arena, breathtaking scenes.”

The crowd breaks out into collective excited chatter, almost as if on cue. 

Flickerman swivels in his chair to face the screens behind the interview area. “Let’s take a look at his path to victory,” he says, gesturing broadly as the screen cuts away from replays of your Hunger Games to Stiles’s.

The reflective dome of the 72nd Hunger Games’ cornucopia is iconic - it’s become a main tourist attraction since then. The camera zooms in on the twenty-four tributes rising onto the platform from their tubes, cutting to a close-up of Stiles’s face as the tubes level.

_God,_ you think. _He was so young._ His face is round with youth in the video replay, eyes wide and terrified. You watch as his gaze darts to the tributes on their platforms around him before flicking to the cornucopia ahead and the rope ladders off to the side, and you can practically see the gears in his mind whirring away. When the horn sounds, he throws himself towards the ladders, sliding onto a lower platform and sprinting away from the massacre in the background.

He stops when he’s several platforms away, hidden by some aerial foliage. There’s a smudge of blood on his cheek, bright and vivid and implicitly vicious.  

The scene cuts to Stiles’s first kill. He’s grappling with a tribute - from District 11, Caesar Flickerman helpfully informs the crowd - along the edge of a platform, and distant sounds of fighting can be heard elsewhere. The District 11 tribute has a dagger of some sort in hand, small and glinting in the sunlight. When the cameras zoom in, you realise with a start that it’s Stiles’s eponymous hunting knife.

There’s a faint cut along Stiles’s neck, as if someone tried to slit his throat. You can’t see his expression, but you can all-too-vividly place yourself in his situation: the exertion of a brutal, physical attack, the sear of adrenaline through veins, the acrid taste of fear at the back of your throat. 

Stiles manages to throw his assailant off-balance, and you watch the District 11 tribute teeter on the brink of the platform for a long second, stark terror in her eyes. In a burst of motion, Stiles bends to retrieve her dropped hunting knife before turning to gut her with it, swift and ruthless. 

The audience is silent now. This is not a respectful silence, you know. This silence trembles with reverence, with barely-concealed bloodlust and an unquenchable thirst for senseless, _needless_ violence. It makes you sick to the stomach.

The camera pans to a better angle. An emotion you can’t name flickers across Stiles’s face, too brief and too fast for anyone who isn’t looking for it to catch. The District 11 tribute gurgles and chokes, a small, wet sound that is loud in the hushed auditorium. 

Stiles yanks the knife from her body, foot coming up to shove her flailing, bleeding body off the platform. You see him watch her fall, face impassive, knife gleaming in the too-bright sun.

Behind you, the audience cheers for a murderer. 

__________

 

Inane questions follow the brief segue into Stiles’s Hunger Games footage replay. 

You take questions from the audience, vacuous and risible ones like _how hard was it to gather food_ and _what did you think of the design of your Arena?_ The spotlights are bright on you, hot and burning.

The interview draws to a close with a video replay of your final kill, the sonorous voice of Caesar Flickerman echoing in the auditorium. _Ladies and gentlemen, the moment a tribute becomes a victor!_

You cannot bear to watch.

The interview cuts to a montage of the crowning moments of other notable tributes, blood and gore and viciousness enrapturing your vapid audience. You watch Haymitch Abernathy stagger to his feet as he is made victor; Glimmer grin fiercely, proud and triumphant; Cogs blink owlishly, almost in disbelief.

Crowd favourites are raucously cheered for, each louder than the next. When Derek Hale’s segment is shown, the crowd goes wild, applause and hoots and cheers deafening.

“Ah,” Flickerman sighs lustily, almost reminiscently. “Derek Hale. One of the more dramatic Games in recent years, viewers!”

The fight onscreen is vicious, Derek grappling with another tribute, a long, bloody gash above his brow. There’s a sword in the other tribute’s hand, glinting deadly silver in the scorching sunlight.  

“Kate Argent, District 2,” Flickerman reminds the audience. “For those of you that might have forgotten, she was a wily one. Played Derek like a fiddle before murdering his sister. A brilliant Games, the 65th.”

The footage skips to the final moments of the fight, Derek struggling to keep a thrashing Kate Argent down as she strains for her sword lying scant inches from her hand. 

His teeth bared, he rips her throat out. The studio audience surges to their feet, cheers deafening.

Caesar Flickerman stands, the spotlights scurrying to focus on him. He spreads his arms, a depraved messiah to godless masses. 

“The Hunger Games, ladies and gentlemen!” 

__________

 

You return to the Victors’ Quarters for dinner, a sumptuous spread of food finer and more plentiful than most people you know will get to see in their lifetime. You allow yourself little of it - plain bread rolls and fruit preserve and a thin slice of cured meat.

Inadequate penance, but you do what you can.

Stiles sidles up next to you, plate heaped with rich meats and sweet breads. He glances at the meagre selection on your plate before sighing, slinging a companionable arm around your shoulders and steering you away from the dining hall, towards the common room. 

It’s a strange deja vu. Derek is sitting on one of the sofas, plate set on the coffee table before him. You struggle to free yourself from under Stiles’s arm, Derek’s earlier standoffishness still fresh in your mind.

“Dude, it’s cool,” he assures you, easily brushing off your attempts to flee.

You settle warily on the sofa next to Stiles, plate balanced on your lap. The bread roll is soft, buttery and pillowy, richer than anything you’ve known. You shred it apart with your fingers, allowing yourself small pieces with slivers of meat. 

Stiles asks Derek how his mentoring is going. It’s a long moment before Derek answers, voice laced with bitterness and spun glass. 

 “I hope,” he says, pausing to inhale sharply, fists clenched too tightly, “I hope they never find it.”

You look up then, perplexed, but beginning to think you understand. “Find what?” you ask, and you think you know the answer.

“A victor’s life,” he sighs, the fight going out of him.

It’s not a curse he wishes on his tributes, you know. It’s a curse he’s trying to save them from.

Around you, the Capitol burns bright in the unquiet night, towers soaring like monolithic graves to the restless, unceasing dead. It’s been a year since you added to that number, a year since you joined that number.

_Ladies and gentlemen, the moment a tribute becomes a victor!_

You shut your eyes.

 

 


End file.
